Dr. Grossman’s Blog

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It is possible to reduce children’s intraocular pressure (or eye pressure) by ensuring that their diet is rich in polyunsaturated fatty acids and fiber.  Children were studied because they had fewer concurrent medical issues than adults that would potentially skew results.

The polunsaturated fatty acids (PUFAs) are key sources of endogenous prostaglandins (fat derived compounds that are essential to the body’s proper funtion).  A diet rich in PUFAs helps aid eye health and reduces eye pressure, according to this study of information derived from the Singapore Cohort Study of Risk Factors for Myopia.

Researchers found that fiber helps to reduce upswings in blood glucose levels after eating.

Elevated intraocular pressure can lead to glaucoma and other damage to the optic nerve.

Source: http://www.pconsupersite.com/view.aspx?rid=75563

For more information on how the nutrients in food can support eye health, visit our website.

Learn about how to prevent and treat glaucoma naturally.

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A study of babies born with cataracts found that infantile cataracts in one or both eyes are associated with very low birth weights (babies born at less than 3.3 pounds).

Infantile cataracts also seems to be an inherited condition – nearly fifty percent of babies born with the condition had a first degree relative who was also born with cataracts.

Since early detection is key to providing the most effective treatment, determining potential risk factors for infantile cataracts increases the likelihood of diagnosing the problem quickly.

Researchers mentioned the following factors that might also play a part in the development of cataracts at birth, but deemed them all to be “statistically insignificant”: maternal urinary tract infections,  aspirin use, alcohol consumption, and smoking.

Source: http://www.osnsupersite.com/view.aspx?rid=68191

For more on cataracts, visit our website.

Amblyopia or “lazy eye” can lead to vision loss in a person’s weaker eye if it goes untreated.  Luckily, if amblyopia is diagnosed and worked on before age seven, more than three quarters of children can achieve at least 23/30 vision.

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Because there are concerns that caregivers can miss the signs of amblyopia, experts are looking into a better way to diagnose the problem.

A program in Iowa sponsored by he University of Iowa and the Iowa Lions Clubs worked together over the last decade to screen almost 150,000 children using technology called the PhotoScreener.  According to the source of this story, MedicalNewsToday.com, this device “records the pattern of light reflected through each of the child’s pupils as the child’s eyes are photographed.”

The PhotoScreener is also helpful in finding such conditions as  unequal visual acuity between the two eyes (anisometropia), high nearsightedness, high farsightedness, astigmatism, and strabismus.

For more on ways that Vision Therapy can help amblyopia and other eye convergence problems, please visit our website.

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Researchers have made a new breakthrough that helps them better understand how genes work to aid the development of the eyes and brain.

They found that the gene Six3 acts as gatekeeper that protects the eye from potentially disruptive signaling proteins as the eye forms in utero.

The eyes, and the retinas specifically, are incredibly complex structures and scientists appreciate the intricately choreographed dance of the genes as they turn on and off at exactly the right times to make proper physical and mental development possible.

But why should we care about another genetic discovery in a lab like the one at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, which ran this study?

Medical News today, the source of this story, spoke to senior study author Guillermo Oliver, Ph.D who said, “realizing the potential of stem cells or other cell-based replacement therapies to correct vision or treat blindness requires a more detailed understanding of the genes and molecular mechanisms involved in normal retinal development.”

In other words, if we want future therapies to help recreate cells to help heal conditions such as macular degeneration of glaucoma, we need to understand how the eyes come together in the first place.

Study: Journal of Clinical Investigation

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Stargardt’s disease is the most common inherited form of macular degeneration that strikes late in childhood.  This disease strikes 1 in 20,000 children over age six and generally leads to legal blindness.

Stargardt’s disease causes a progressive loss of central vision. The main signs and symptoms are loss of visual acuity or sharpness of vision, decreased color vision and small blind spots. Other symptoms may include blurriness and visual distortion, difficulty adapting to the dark after sunlight exposure, and/or light sensitivity. Sufferers with severe vision loss may also experience visual hallucinations and are the result of the brain trying to make sense of impaired visual input.

Nutrients such as lutein, zeaxanthin and mesozeaxanthin may help slow the progression of Stargardt’s Disease and/or prevent further vision loss. Patients with Stargardt’s disease are cautioned against taking vitamin A because researchers believe gene mutations lead to abnormal synthesis of the vitamin in the eyes, resulting in increased loss of vision.

For more information on the causes, prevention, and treatment of Stargardt’s disease, please visit our website.

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New research shows yet another way that children are unique and cannot be considered “little adults.”

When interpreting the world adults will combine the information gathered from their various senses, but this is not true with children.  The brains of children keep information from their senses separate.  Their brains also process information differently when they see something with one eye opposed to two eyes.

It is thought that children keep the information from various senses separate as they learn how to navigate the world so they can understand the relationship between different kinds of input.

In this study published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Source: http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/201013.php

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Scientists have been working to determine whether close, detailed work really can “ruin your eyes.”  We do agree that myopia (farsightedness) can be cause or exacerbated by excessive time spent at close-up work such as work on computers, sewing, accounting, jewelry work.

A study out of Turkey compared two groups of twelve year old boys – students engaged in “near-work” and apprentices working as skilled laborers.  Researchers publishing in Vision Research say “This prospective and controlled study suggested that reading and near work, important environmental factors, might cause refractive myopic shifts in emmetropic (having perfect vision) students.

For more on the causes of myopia and ways to prevent it, visit our website.

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A study published in Archives of Ophthalmology claims that bifocals may slow the deterioration of vision in children with myopia.

Researchers fitted 135 myopic Chinese Canadian children with standard single vision glasses, traditional executive bifocals, and bifocals with prism lenses. (Prism lenses help to make the two eyes work together and help the eyes focus.) The children wearing prism bifocals experienced the least vision deterioration followed by those wearing the regular bifocals. The outcomes for the bifocal wearers were significantly better than for those wearing standard glasses.

We believe that a diagnosis of myopia does not mean a lifetime of stronger and stronger glasses. Nearsightedness can be improved in a majority of cases through vision therapy, nutrition, and lifestyle changes.

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Vitamin A deficiency is uncommon in the U.S., but it affects many people in the developing world.  One of first symptoms of a vitamin A deficiency is night blindness, which, if untreated can develop into full scale blindness.  According to the World Health Organization Report on Vitamin A Deficiency, night blindness is estimated to affect 5.2 million preschool-age children and 9.8 million pregnant women around the globe.

Writing on a recent case in The Lancet, doctors who treated a pregnant woman who came to the emergency room after several weeks of progressive sight loss described this particular case, “Vitamin A deficiency can be secondary to poor intestinal absorption due to weight loss surgery, Crohn’s disease or pancreatic dysfunction. Our patient had anorexia nervosa and had limited her diet to white onions, white potatoes, and red meat for the past 7 years.”

We usually recommend taking vitamin A in the form of beta-carotene, which converts to vitamin A with a small amount of fat in the diet. Food sources of vitamin A include: yellow and orange vegetables (including yams, carrots, mangoes, cantaloupe, apricots, butternut squash,and sweet potatoes), and asparagus, spinach, kale, bok choy.  If you wish for additional supplementation, the recommended dose is approximately 15,000 to 25,000 I.U. of beta-carotene daily.

Learn more about food as sources of vital nutrients at our website.

In a study of the brains of infants in response to various stimuli, it was found that babies experience increased brain activity when making eye contact with an adult. The results, published in Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, help scientist understand more development of social perception and suggest that a part of the brain is specifically programmed to process eye gaze even at a very early age.

Researchers measured “increased early evoked gamma activity at occipital channels indicating enhanced neural processing during the earliest steps of face encoding” when babies looked at pictures of women whose gazes were directed at them.  Pictures of women with their faces tilted downward or who were looking away from the viewer did not elicit the same response, “confirming that the gamma band oscillations observed in response to gaze direction are specific to upright faces.”

So, look deep into those baby blues and help the development of next baby you meet!

Source: Medscape Today